The effects of COVID-19 on domestic violence and immigrant families.

The COVID-19 pandemic has threatening implications for all individuals; and has been particularly unsettling for immigrants. Given their unique positionality in the U.S., the intersectional discussion about the impact of this pandemic on immigrants and issues of family violence is salient. The position of some groups of immigrant women is even more precarious due to the increased dependency on their spouse/partner for emotional, economic and immigration-related reasons. While immigrants have been on the frontlines as responders for COVID-19, there are limited policies that provide them with healthcare, employment guarantee, or benefits. Further, the immigration restrictions created by the U.S. Government have worsened the position of immigrants. All these stressors create unprecedented challenges for immigrants. Therefore, it is vital to delve into the family dynamics, unique challenges, and potential solutions that can provide support to immigrant families. This commentary highlights the atypical challenges of immigrants in relation to the pandemic and how these challenges may impact the incidence of family violence. Through our discussion, we hope to encourage social work scholars, practitioners, and policy advocates to support and advocate for immigrants; especially, during the new normal under the COVID-19 pandemic

The Impact of COVID-19 on Family Violence in Immigrant Communities in the United States

The COVID-19 pandemic has threatening implications for all individuals; and has been particularly unsettling for immigrants. Given their unique positionality in the U.S., the intersectional discussion about the impact of this pandemic on immigrants and issues of family violence is salient. The position of some groups of immigrant women is even more precarious due to the increased dependency on their spouse/partner for emotional, economic and immigration-related reasons. While immigrants have been on the frontlines as responders for COVID-19, there are limited policies that provide them with healthcare, employment guarantee, or benefits. Further, the immigration restrictions created by the U.S. Government have worsened the position of immigrants. All these stressors create unprecedented challenges for immigrants. Therefore, it is vital to delve into the family dynamics, unique challenges, and potential solutions that can provide support to immigrant families. This commentary highlights the atypical challenges of immigrants in relation to the pandemic and how these challenges may impact the incidence of family violence. Through our discussion, we hope to encourage social work scholars, practitioners, and policy advocates to support and advocate for immigrants; especially, during the new normal under the COVID-19 pandemic

Native Student Attitudes towards Equal Rights for Immigrants: A Study in 18 European Countries

The present study investigates the determinants of native student attitudes towards equal rights for immigrants giving particular attention to the effect of immigrant share in the classroom and the extent to which it can be generalized across country contexts. The contribution sheds some new light on the validity of the contact hypothesis, which suggests that mixing native and immigrant students in schools and classrooms can contribute to higher levels of support for immigrants’ rights. The analyses were conducted across 18 countries participating to the ICCS survey in 2009. For the analyses we applied a three-level multilevel model controlling for individual, classroom, and country characteristics. We tested a random slope for immigrant share in the classroom at country level, and we modeled both linear and quadratic effects of immigrant share. The overall pattern suggests that in most countries there is a small positive effect of immigrant share, which does not change dramatically in direction or size at higher immigrant share levels

Essays on immigration policy

This Ph.D. dissertation consists of three chapters on immigration economics. The main objective of the thesis is to explore how legal and unauthorized immigration systems interact and explore some of its consequences based on the case of the United States. Chapter 2 studies the U.S. immigration reform of 1986 and how it affected the migration dynamics of Mexican immigrants. Chapter 3 investigates the effect of documentation on immigrants' labor market outcomes. Chapter 4 studies the connection between a selective legal immigration system and the prevention of unauthorized immigration

Effective civic and citizenship education:A cross-cultural perspective

Reinforcing citizenship and social integration are important goals of schools worldwide. In most educational systems, school are free to design their civic and citizenship education curricula and pedagogical objectives and practices may vary. Understanding the possible influence of school factors on civic and citizenship competences remains a difficult task. This dissertation aims to shed some light on the contribution of schools and the wider learning environment to the acquisition of civic and citizenship competences in lower secondary education. We use a theoretical framework based on educational effectiveness research and present empirical findings estimated across several educational systems and democratic contexts. The results show that citizenship learning depends strongly on students’ background, their motivation, the opportunities they have to learn, discuss and practice democracy outside school, as well as on aspects of the school quality. Although the school appears to play a modest role, we find that school experiences are promoting the acquisition of cognitive outcomes (civic knowledge and skills) and to a less extent the acquisition of non-cognitive outcomes (attitudes, values, behavioral dispositions). The findings tend to suggest the possibility that different school characteristics may be linked to different civic competences and that curricular approaches that foster simultaneously all outcomes are difficult to develop. Nevertheless, we find that stimulating a democratic classroom climate in which free dialogue and critical debate on controversial political and social issues are encouraged is highly important in promoting effectively all types of civic competences